Film rolls are normally produced with the aid of winding machines by winding a film sheet off a first film roll and winding it up to a film roll core. In this connection the film sheet wound up to the first roll is normally a great deal longer than the film sheet wound up to the core. The produced film roll with a smaller diameter can then e.g. be used in suitable handling means for manually wrapping up pallets or the like. It is further possible to produce a stretched, i.e. preextended, film sheet with the aid of the winding machine. Besides the use of the produced film rolls in manually operated unroll means or the like, such film rolls are also employed in automatic pallet wrapping-up devices and the like. A device for producing film rolls comprising a prestretched film sheet is, for example, described in WO 95/13965.
The film roll cores are, for example, hollow tubular cardboard cores. The film roll cores must be manually inserted into existing film roll winding machines, and the ready-wound film rolls must be manually removed from the winding machine.